US admits mistakes in deadly Pakistan air strike

A US MILITARY investigation has found that US and Afghan commandos mistakenly
called in an air strike on Pakistani bases that killed 24 soldiers last
month, according to American officials familiar to the report.

Smoke rising apparently after a cross-border NATO air strike on Pakistani border posts on a mountain in the Mohmand tribal district on 26 November 2011Photo: AFP

The 60-page document has not yet been released but The Daily Telegraph has been told it will say that both the United States and Pakistan must share the blame for a catalogue of communications failures.

The cross-border attack plunged relations between the two countries to a new low, provoking a round of tit-for-tat allegations about who was responsible.

However, the findings of an American investigation show that the US and Afghan forces wrongly concluded there were no Pakistani forces in the border area where the coalition was conducting an operation on Nov 26, according to US officials talking to The Wall Street Journal.

That assessment cleared the way for an air strike that destroyed two Pakistani border posts.

Pakistan responded angrily to the attack, closing its land crossings into Afghanistan to Nato supply convoys and announcing a review of all relations with Washington and Nato. American officials are still braced for diplomatic expulsions.

In the meantime Cameron Munter, the US ambassador to Islamabad, is believed to have ordered a halt to CIA drone strikes in the border areas of Pakistan as he tries to patch up relations.

As leaks emerged on Thursday, American officials were hurriedly briefing their Pakistani counterparts.

The admission of blame will likely go some way to easing anger among Islamabad’s civilian and military leadership, who have had to contend with a groundswell of anti-American sentiment.

Pakistan has sought a full apology from President Barack Obama for the strikes, while US officials have maintained the November 26 incident was a regrettable mistake.

A statement released by the Pentagon said officers had given the wrong co-ordinates to Pakistani personnel at a border co-ordination post when asking about the location of local forces.

“The investigating officer found that US forces, given what information they had available to them at the time, acted in self defence and with appropriate force after being fired upon,” it said.

“He also found that there was no intentional effort to target persons or places known to be part of the Pakistani military, or to deliberately provide inaccurate location information to Pakistani officials.”